Repetition, time and the infinite

Photo source: artist's own via Huffington Post

My desire was to predict and measure the infinity of the unbounded universe, from my own position in it, with dots--an accumulation of particles forming the negative spaces in the net - Yayoi Kusama

I am reflecting on why repetitive activity/repetition of forms is something that I find very important to the kind of work that I want to make. When I think of the act of repetition, I consider it as a metaphor for  the kind of 'rhythm' found in nature. For example the leaves on a tree, each one is similar yet unique. The act of drawing a simple form over and over again can convey this feeling of a natural rhythm. It feels like a life affirming act. 

Yayoi Kusama's 'I Who Have Arrived In Heaven' Exhibition Press
Preview at David Zwirner Art Gallery on November 7, 2013 in
New York City. (Photo by Andrew Toth/Getty Images) via
Huffington Post

I also think this act is tied up with the notion of time, and specifically one of marking time. Artist like On Kawara and Tatsuo Miyajima's work are connected to time and the concept of existence.  I also read this idea in Kusama's work. Although Kusama talks about the idea of obliteration in her endless dot/net paintings, and that this OCD-led repetitive activity was a means of channeling her mental instability and fear of being obliterated...my feeling is that it is somehow connected to the idea of time, endless time, which in a sense is like reaching for the infinite.